SLO County restaurants, gyms can reopen indoors under red tier. Here’s what to expect
San Luis Obispo County’s move back to the red tier is especially good news for business like restaurants and gyms, who can once again offer limited indoor services.
On Tuesday, business owners and leaders across multiple industries were already working to quickly adjust as the announcement came that the restrictions would be eased starting on Wednesday.
South County Chambers of Commerce CEO Jocelyn Brennan told The Tribune that “businesses are very excited to be in the red tier. In particular, gyms, which have been outdoors, can now allow 10% capacity in their (businesses).”
“Restaurants are busy preparing and bringing their staff back for 25% indoor dining as well,” Brennan said.
SLO County restaurant owners react
Rammy Aburashed, of the family-owned SLO restaurant Petra, said it will be helpful to be able to seat 25% capacity indoors, after outdoor use only under the purple tier status in recent months.
“It will be nice to have that option for more people to sit inside versus outside, especially if it’s cold or raining,” Aburashed said. “We are looking forward to it and hope we can keep going in the same direction.”
Ken McMillan, owner of DiStasio’s in Morro Bay, said that it has been “terrible” to have to hire and re-hire staff, adding it has been hard on owners and workers alike amid the tier changes. But he said he’s happy for indoor dining as summer approaches, which will bring welcome business.
“One thing I’ve learned from all this is nobody can predict the future,” McMillan said. “But it will be helpful moving into those summer months and getting some people inside on freezing days. Some people love to be outdoors, though, and that’s interesting to know. Fortunately, we’ve been in business on the Central Coast for 25 years, and we have great local support. But the back-and-forth has been crazy.”
Shanny Covey, co-owner of Robin’s restaurant in Cambria and Novo and Luna Red in San Luis Obispo, said the shift to red tier likely will affect Luna Red more than the other two eateries.
Robin’s and Novo remained set up for that tier indoors, but both have had spacious outdoor dining spaces for years, now with plenty of social distancing.
“I don’t think there’ll be an onslaught of people ready to eat inside,” she said by phone Tuesday, “not until they really feel it’s safe for them to do that.”
But because the indoor dining rooms have been “sitting vacant, already are socially distanced,” with half the tables moved out, “we’ll be able to resume seating inside for those people who can’t stand the cold” or other weather conditions.
Luna Red has good outdoor space too, but Covey said the switch to red tier “will be very helpful ... because it has a much larger footprint inside.”
SLO County gym owners react
The shift to the red tier was more than welcome to Kennedy Club Fitness managing partner Brett Weaver.
“I’m glad we can bring health and fitness to our county, especially the city of San Luis Obispo, without the threat of being fined,” he said.
The business has appealed $8,000 in fines issued by the city of SLO for alleged COVID-19 order violations.
“People are fatigued from the mental, physical stress put on them the past year and have reached out to us for relief,” Weaver said. “We are looking forward to seeing members who otherwise stayed away because we were deemed non-essential, high-risk and considered a super-spreader.”
Weaver added: “Our hopes for the next few months are to exceed our members expectations and provide quality health and wellness to reach optimal health. All we have ever asked is let us and others operate under the state’s original guidelines for reopening.”
Kristin Horowitz, owner of the Pad Climbing Gym in SLO, said that “we’re excited to be able to reopen at 10% and scrambling to get staff all ready to reopen.”
But Horowitz said that 10% capacity “doesn’t allow us to operate in a profitable range.”
Horowitz, representing the California Indoor Climbing Coalition, has been lobbying with business leaders and the state Department of Health to allow for fitness centers like her operation to fully reopen, arguing the science supports it.
Horowitz added government stimulus has fallen short, amid those calls.
“My industry isn’t getting support needed from both the federal government and the state government,” Horowitz said in an open letter appeal for more government assistance, shared with The Tribune. “I was fortunate that one of my locations got enough EID loan money to keep us alive through the last year, but my other entity did not. I’ve been fighting for eight months at the federal level to get an appeal through.”
Paso Robles retail store
Joeli Yaguda, co-founder of the General Store in Paso Robles, said the red tier status means the business won’t have to limit its store capacity to 12 people, expanding that to about 20 in-store, in line with capacity limits.
Yaguda said the store has been employing a door greeter at the front to count heads as patrons approach.
But the re-opening of 50% retail capacity means they likely won’t need to keep that person on staff for such careful monitoring.
“The weird silver lining is that it’s kind of nice to have someone stand at the door and greet people as a business,” Yaguda said. “People are so conditioned now to wait, and they need to wait sometimes. I’m thrilled people are so patient.”
But Yaguda said it’s important to make people feel safe, and they’ve strived to limit their occupancies.
Yaguda said neighboring restaurant businesses in her downtown Paso Robles location have been working “twice as hard as we are to offer outdoor dining.”
“They’re running and hustling and serving so many people in a physical way,” Yaguda said.
Doing business in a pandemic economy
Monika’s Macarons, operated by Monika Anderson and Rick Joseph, said they are hopeful that COVID-19 cases will continue to decline and trend in a safe direction.
But they also would like to see that public health restrictions are aligned with vaccines to prevent future spikes in cases.
“We need to make sure as we’re opening tiers, we’re also making sure our workers get vaccinated,” Anderson said. “If somebody is exposed to the virus, then all the people in the business likely would be exposed. Ideally the (loosening of restrictions) would be in lock step with vaccines.”
Aburashed, who co-founded the restaurant Seeds in downtown SLO, which offers a variety of juice bowl, drink and food options, said that business won’t be offering indoor dining just yet.
But he announced Seeds is planning a move to a larger tenant space at 1040 Court St. in the spring near Sephora, helped by tenant openings that have made “quadrupling the business’ size” more affordable.
“Honestly, we were able to do that during COVID because of lot of different (commercial tenant) deals are popping up,” Aburashed said.
Cambria businesses react
The county’s return to red COVID tier status won’t affect how Realtors do business, which has been booming, according to Bob Kasper, owner/broker at The Real Estate Company of Cambria.
But holding open houses is still off the table “until the next tier,” he said by phone Tuesday.
“We are an essential business. We can show property physically,” as long as the prospective buyers sign a waiver, arrive in their own vehicle, wear masks and observe other pandemic protocols.
Only three people can be in the house at the same time, including the agent, Kasper said.
Various factors are fueling the boom, he said, which has produced such situations as extremely low inventory of homes on the market and the expectation that multiple bids, all over the listing price, will be submitted very quickly after the home goes on the market.
Joe Vergara, co-owner of two Cambria businesses, said by phone Tuesday that one will be hugely impacted by the county’s tier shift, while the other one probably won’t be.
His Vyana Wellness Collective/Massage and Spa, in two suites at 4090 Burton Drive, “has been closed the last nine out of 12 months,” he said. “We’re super excited about being able to reopen and provide those personal services to our customers again.”
Business operations probably won’t change much at Soto’s True Earth Market, which has been open and increasingly busy throughout, he said.
“A lot more people have been buying groceries and cooking and eating at home,” Vergara said.
Offering “a small local shopping experience,” rather than a supermarket or big-box store one, and providing curbside and home delivery, have “positively impacted our business over the last year.”
SLO provides business support
On Tuesday, SLO Economic Development Director Lee Johnson sent out a group email to businesses, noting a host of options for continued support.
Those include a Thursday forum from noon to 1:30 p.m. to help businesses on how to host a virtual event, information on SLO’s Buy Local Bonus program, and parking garage reminders (two hours for free on Saturdays and Sundays in addition to one hour free on weekdays).
Johnson said the city’s Buy Local Bonus program has 135 local businesses signed up through the Business Buy-In form, and 2,000 shoppers have submitted receipts totaling more than $375,000 in local dollars spent.
SLO officials have set aside city funding to offer $20 gift cards to anyone who purchased $100 worth of items at small businesses in the city.
This story was originally published March 3, 2021 at 9:00 AM.
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